TRC #254: Barefoot Running + Darren’s Eurotrip + Barefoot Driving

Episode 254 is pretty wild. First of all, Adam and Pat both coincidentally do segments about being barefoot. Adam looks into if there are any benefits to barefoot running and Pat discusses whether or not it is illegal to drive barefoot. In between these two gems, Darren hosts a game of Science Fact or Science Fiction, with the topic being things he learnt on his trip to Europe. Enjoy!

Also, the alcohol consumed per capita by country: I remember Luxembourg being number one, and it wasn’t close. But, that might have been in liters of alcoholic beverages consumed, not pure booze. Can’t find where I found that though. Speaking of Luxembourg, there is an error in the Wikipedia chart, and it should actually be ABOVE France. Also, Luxembourg city, and this is just what I heard from living there, has more Irish pubs per capita than any other city on the planet, including ones in Ireland. I’ve also heard it has more restaurants that offer alcohol per capita than any other city.

No idea if this shit is true. But, remarkably, Luxembourg has more national pride in its beer than any other country I’ve ever seen. In most countries, one can find many imports as well as a few domestic types in bars. However, on draft in Luxembourg, unless it’s an irish bar in which case Strongbow and Guinness are added, one can pretty much only find local brews: Bofferding, Battin, Diekirch, and to a lesser extent Mousel, which is normally advertised very loudly outside the public houses that provide it, as too is Bofferding, which is also given out for free at many public family events, like the Christmas parade.

Luxembourg is also the world’s only Grand Duchy, and one of the only places I’ve ever heard of that’s selectively trilingual. Belgium, for example, is trilingual; some places speak Dutch, some places speak French, some places speak German (like Eupen). But Luxembourg is trilingual everywhere, it’s just situation dependent. For example, natives speak in Luxembourgish among themselves and friends, and definitely in the bakery, but in most other contexts use French…except on TV, radio and newspapers, which is mostly in German, though there are a few exceptions where Luxembourgish is used, but it’s primarily translated only in as much as is needed to make it intelligibly to Luxembourgish speakers, which is not much at all. This is not because the media is from other countries, mind you. RTL is one of the biggest media companies in the world and it’s based in Luxembourg.

In government, Luxembourgish is used, except when laws are cited, when it’s in French. If you speak Luxembourgish, German, or French, the government has to help you in the chosen language.

Now, I said something weird a little bit ago: Luxembourgish is used in a bakery. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true. In fancy restaurants, you should use French unless you’re foreign and waiters will give you shit for not doing it. But in non fancy restaurants you can do whatever. BUT IN THE BAKERY it’s a big faux pas to not do Luxembourgish, even if you’re foreign.

Also, I said trilingual, but it’s really more like quadrilingual, because most of the population is fluent in English. Really. 60% of the population is fluent in English. This is because of their cool language education system.

In elementary school, they are taught in German and Luxembourgish but take French classes, then science and math are taught in French, then in the higher levels, almost everything is taught in French, but they are required to take English classes for many years. A lot of languages, right? Wait: they ALSO have an elective language that they need to take in high school for a few years, which can be Latin, Spanish, or Italian, iirc, though I think Portuguese may be offered now, as 15% of the population is a recent Portuguese immigrant, though in cities like Differdange it’s a little more.

That comment was just a waste of my time. I have no idea why I wrote that up. It’s not like I’m going to ever do a Luxembourg myths segment on your show. What the hell.

About the guy with the “found ring” incident Darren spoke of: We were in Paris last year and the same thing happened waiting for a bus near D’Orsay. I knew he was a con right away so when he pulled out the ring I immediately said “sell that if you want money” and he went away. I’d like to think it was the same person and not there is a hundred people using the same scam all over Paris!

About four months after returning to running after 25 years, I developed a severe stress fracture in my right tibia which took over five months to heal. When I started running again, I switched to Vibram Five-Fingers and have run 2,500 miles, including 4 marathons and countless half-marathons injury-free since. That said, I try to be a good skeptic, especially when others ask me about the shoes, how I like running in them etc. I always emphasize that I like them, but it takes WEEKS to get used to them. You have to completely change the way you run. In fact, I took a couple of classes to learn proper form. Your calves will hate you for at least two weeks. In addition to that advice, I also tell people that if they aren’t having any problems with their current footwear, they should probably stick with what they already have.